Eyes
by Shinigami's Death Angel
Summary: Zexion and Demyx are in kindergarten and their teacher does a little activity on racism, which could either tear these two unlikely friends apart or bring them closer together. Wonder which it'll be! ;P


A/N: This one was inspired by my sociology class when we were watching this PBS documentary on that teacher in, um, Iowa(?) or someplace who did this in the, er, 60's(??). Thank god I wasn't tested on this! Anyways, so the idea was from that, so obviously I don't own it.

**

* * *

Eyes**

"Miss Anne!" A tiny blur of dirty blond rushed at the elderly woman currently wiping grape jelly off of a smiling redhead's face. Miss Anne looked up to see an excitedly bouncing bundle of five year old standing beside her.

"What is it Demyx?" Miss Anne asked with a gentle smile, knowing that the most hyperactive tyke in her kindergarten class wouldn't be able to calm down until he said what he wanted.

"There's a new boy over there, but he won't talk to me." Demyx's lower lip pouted out as he pointed a tiny finger towards the corner where Miss Anne's newest charge was sitting quietly behind a (she had to double take to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her) thick book that boldly announced itself as a children's encyclopedia.

"That's 'cause you're a loudmouthed loon." The redhead sitting on a stool smirked as he swung his unnaturally lanky legs back and forth, the grape jelly not quite all off his cheeks.

"Axel, be nice with your words." Miss Anne finished up her work on him before lifting him up and setting him on the floor. "Go find Roxas, I think he's over at the blocks trying to build a house." She gave him a little nudge in the right direction, causing him to immediately tear off as fast as his five year old legs would allow. "Now, Demyx," Miss Anne turned back to the still bouncing Demyx, wide aquamarine eyes blinking up at her. "Why don't you try being a bit quieter around Zexion, then maybe he'll want to play with you more." She suggested, although truthfully she kind of doubted the dark haired boy would really enjoy the company of such a loud little one.

"M'kay!" Demyx grinned before turning to bound off, but stopped abruptly and looked back over his shoulder with an adorably confused frown on his lips. "Um, what was his name 'gain?"

"Zexion." Miss Anne smiled kindly down at him before sitting behind her desk to see how this was going to play out.

"Zexy?" Demyx's normally exuberantly loud voice was unusually demure as he approached the smaller boy almost completely hidden behind his book. Dark indigo eyes snapped up to gaze at the nervously shifting blond with a measuring look.

"My name is Zexion." The boy corrected flatly, voice lacking all the warmth and pure innocence of Demyx's.

"I-I know, but I like Zexy better. I can't say Ze-Zekshion very well." Demyx admitted, eyes downcast as he scuffed a worn sneaker on the carpet beneath them.

Zexion blinked dumbly up at him, head cocked slightly to the side so that dark bangs fell to just above his right eye, for once not quite knowing what to say to this strange looking boy who actually wanted to talk to him. Demyx, having managed to start a conversation with the boy that looked utterly unapproachable, now was frantically wracking his brain trying to find how to continue it.

"Um, do you want to sit with me during story time?" Demyx asked quickly, looking up to see that Miss Anne was gathering the children around her by the cushions with a book in her hand.

"I already know how to read." Zexion said, looking genuinely confused about why he should listen to someone else read a book when he could just as easily read it to himself.

"But Miss Anne makes it sound better!" Demyx all of a sudden perked up with his excited smile back in place. "An' she's reading Charlotte's Web today, it's about a spider!" And without further ado Demyx grabbed Zexion's smaller hand and pulled him up. "Oh! Silly me, I forgot to tell you my name!" Demyx exclaimed as he bounced along, keeping a firm hold on Zexion's hand in case the smaller boy decided to make a run for it.

"You did forget." Was all Zexion could really manage to say as he was dragged along.

"It's Demyx!"

* * *

"Okay children, today we're going to learn about racism. Who here knows what racism means?" Miss Anne stood before her class as they sat in their little plastic chairs behind small desks, bright eyes trained upon her with curiosity as several heads shook their heads no.

"Racism is when one group of people are mean to another because the other group is from a different place or looks different." Zexion said, trying to sound as smart as he could with his five year old vocabulary.

"That's right Zexion." Miss Anne smiled as Demyx, being Zexion's desk mate, gave the smaller one a bone squishing congratulatory hug. "Now boys and girls, do you think racism sounds right?" She directed the question towards the entire class.

"No Miss Anne," a chorus of voices replied immediately.

"So why do you think racism exists?" Miss Anne asked. She knew the subject was a heavy one that most of her students wouldn't be able to grasp until years later, but it never hurt to get a foot in the door when they were at their most impressionable age.

"Because people like feeling better than others?" Sora, Roxas' brown haired twin, suggested, a look of intense concentration on his face that made his desk mate Riku laugh.

"Because grown-ups are meanies." Axel stated loudly.

"Do you think it's only grown-ups Axel?" Miss Anne asked him, causing the redhead to stare blankly back, completely off guard.

"But…we don't think racism." Roxas, sitting a bit reluctantly beside Axel, gave him a curious look at what the spiky blonde knew couldn't be correct grammar.

"And that's a very good thing, because racism is very mean and it hurts people." Miss Anne assured her class. "So, today we're going to do something fun." A cheer rose from her class upon hearing that, but inside Miss Anne was feeling a bit apprehensive about what she was about to do. "We're going to play pretend we're in a racist situation, okay?" She carefully looked at each of her students to gauge their reaction. Most everyone looked excited about the, in their minds, new game, but the quiet introverted Zexion looked a bit nervous. "What we're going to do is split the class by eye color. For today, whoever has green eyes is better than people with blue eyes, and tomorrow we'll switch. Riku and Demyx you two are going to be counted as green eyed." Miss Anne cut off their already forming questions before they were even asked.

The entire class started looking around at each other, already mapping out who was superior and who was inferior to the other. Demyx felt his stomach sink when he realized that Zexion, his bestest friend for a whole entire week, was going to be on the blue eyed side.

"So me and Roxy are going to be separated?" Axel looked ready to pout, which made Roxas thump him on his spiky red head before getting up and walking with his brother to Zexion's side of the room as Miss Anne directed the two eye colors to opposite sides of the room.

Zexion, even in his inexperienced mind, could feel that this was bound to end up horribly wrong, but didn't dare say anything for fear of the other kids thinking him weirder than they already did. Eyes lowered to the doodle covered desk as Zexion tried to ignore the people around him who were not Demyx. Although everyone else thought him to be cold and snobby, Zexion was really just an extremely shy and insecure little boy who didn't want anyone to hurt him. Fortunately, or on some days unfortunately, for him Demyx had ignored the cold exterior and started to wrap himself into Zexion's life. Now, even though it'd only been a week, Zexion already couldn't imagine himself without his best friend, but they were now on two different sides of a classroom divided by eye color.

* * *

"Sora, please stop crying." Roxas was hugging his twin while glaring at the taller boy laughing down at them. "That wasn't nice Vexen!" Roxas spat, trying to look as intimidating as he could with his vibrant blue eyes narrowed.

"So? I'm better than you two so I can do whatever I want." Vexen stuck his tongue out before walking away with a group of other green eyed boys from their class.

"It's alright Sora, he's just a stupid meanie." Roxas tried to soothe his brother who had been shoved down to the concrete ground of the playground.

"They're all being mean to us, it's not fair." A petite pink haired boy was sitting dejectedly in the small circle of blue eyed kids who were, for the day, not allowed to play on the playground equipment.

"Why does it matter what eye color we have? They were nice to us yesterday." Namine, a pale blond haired girl wiped a small tear away from her eyes as she tried to wipe the mud from her sketchbook after some girls had thrown it in a puddle.

Zexion watched in silence as his fellow blue eyed kids started voicing similar thoughts, with more tears and sad frowns around. Glancing over at the playground equipment where the green eyed kids were laughing in glee, he couldn't help but feel a jerk at his heart upon seeing Demyx playing tag with a group of boys who usually picked on Zexion.

"Look at all the losers sitting around. We better be careful we don't catch their cooties." A group of girls walking by laughed cruelly at the sad looking group on the ground, causing Namine to finally burst out into tears and run back into the school building.

"Hey, don't be mean to us!" Roxas stood up, chin tilted high to try and gain some height over the group of girls. His fellow blue eyes looked up at their standing comrade, hope shimmering hesitantly in their eyes.

"You guys are a bunch of losers and we're better than you, so there!" the girls formed a circle surrounding Roxas, effectively cutting him off from any help. Zexion watched with morbid amusement as the other blue eyed kids shuffled away from the circle as the girls looked ready to start beating Roxas up.

"Hey, you leave my brother alone!" Sora, bless his little soul, stood up with tiny fists clenched, shaking like a leaf but trying not to show it. Next thing he knew and he was in the middle of the circle as well, clinging to his brother as the circle started closing in on him.

"This is not going to end well." Zexion muttered, although no one was inclined to care about what he was saying.

"Hey, leave them alone." The group of girls looked up to see an angry looking Axel and Riku standing there, arms crossed and bodies rigid. Shocked eyes of varying shades of green stared at the two boys as the captive twins took the opportunity to slip out of the circle and hide behind their saviors.

"But-but you two are green eyed. You shouldn't be protecting them." one of the girls stuttered.

"They're our friends." Axel's acidic green eyes glared as he put an arm around his Roxy who, for the first time, didn't seem to mind the tall redhead's arm holding him.

"So? Demyx isn't playing with his emo friend?" another girl pointed out, causing Zexion to huff silently. She probably didn't even know the meaning of emo.

"Demyx!" Riku shouted across the playground to Demyx, who was running around after a butterfly. Demyx skidded to a halt and looked over with wide questioning eyes. Upon seeing the crowd and the obvious situation, Demyx made his cautious way over. "Demyx, tell them that if they picked on Zexion you would protect him." Riku instructed.

Demyx's mouth opened slightly but no sound came out, causing Zexion to inwardly panic a bit. "But, um, didn't Miss Anne say that his eye color is ugly?" The question was asked innocently enough, but as those words left his lips Zexion felt a steel wall suddenly come up between them as he stood up, drawing all attention to him. Although his bangs did a valiant job of trying to hide his eyes, Demyx could easily see the tears welling up in their dark blue depths.

Suddenly realizing his mistake, Demyx hastily tried to fix it. "I'm so sorry Zexy! I didn't mean-" But Zexion chose that moment to turn around and run off into the school building just like Namine had.

Zexion didn't come to school the next day.

When Demyx walked into the classroom two days later with his small blue backpack with a seahorse on it almost falling off a shoulder, the first thing he saw was his best friend sitting in a corner alone with his encyclopedia again. The backpack landed on the floor with a thud as Demyx rushed over to embrace his friend, jumbled words of apology spilling out at a mile per minute. Zexion just sat there stiffly, not responding whatsoever to the blond trying so hard to get his friend back.

"Z-Zexy? Please say something?" Demyx implored, aqua eyes moist as he pulled back to look at his friend. "I'm really really sorry Zexy." He tried, only to be met with a cold stare.

Suddenly remembering something, Demyx scrambled up and raced back to the doorway to grab his backpack before making his way back to Zexion's corner. Zexion tried his hardest not to look curious as Demyx rooted frantically around in his bag, pink tongue peeking out in concentration. Eyes suddenly brightened as a small hand finally grasped what he was looking for. Removing his hand, Demyx brought out a black skeleton kitty plush and held him out to Zexion.

"I remember you told me you really like skeleanimals, and when you didn't come in yesterday I knew you was still mad at me, so I thought maybe if I got you him you'd forgive me." Demyx mumbled, eyes gazing hopefully at the frozen boy before him. "I really didn't mean what I said Zexy. I think your eyes are pretty." Demyx confessed, lower lip starting to quiver a little at Zexion's unresponsiveness.

Zexion continued to look at the dirty blond sitting before him holding onto a stuffed kitty as if his life depended on it. Suddenly, a wide, dazzling smile lit up Zexion's entire face as he took the kitty from his best friend. Demyx, letting out a sigh of relief, decided right then that he would make it his mission to make Zexion smile like that every day.

Zexion looked down at his new kitty, smile still on his face, before looking back up at his relieved friend. Softening his smile, Zexion leaned forward and placed a kiss on his best friend's lips.

"I think yours are pretty too."


End file.
